Image mosaicing is the process of creating an output image, also called “mosaic”, from smaller input images. An example of application of image mosaicing is for creating a panoramic image. An example of a way of providing the input images is by capturing a video. Thus, with such examples of image mosaicing, it is possible for a user to sweep a scene with a video camera for capturing a video of the swept scene. The image mosaicing may create a panorama of the swept scene from the successive images of the captured video.
Documents US 2004/057633 A1, WO 9834195 A1, WO 2007/122584 A1 and the publication entitled “Mosaic based representations of video sequences and their applications” (by Irani et al., dated 1995, published in the Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Computer Vision, Cambridge, Mass., Jun. 20-23, 1995) present examples of image mosaicing.
An issue with the prior art image mosaicing solutions known to the Applicant is that they do not deal well with moving objects in the scene being recorded. This can lead to several kinds of defects, the most common ones being “ghosts”, where moving objects are partially blended with the background. Other defects that commonly occur due this issue are extended or cut objects/persons. These all result in a low quality of the final mosaic.